State Approaches to Extending Chafee Services to Age 23

For the past two decades, states have been able to access federal funds through the John H. Chafee Program for Successful Transition to Adulthood program to support young adults leaving foster care up to their 21st birthday. Yet young people who have been in foster care continue to face challenges w...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Policy File 2021
Main Authors: Brewsaugh, Katrina, Richardson, Audrey, Loveless, Annelise
Format: Report
Language:English
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Urban Institute
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Summary:For the past two decades, states have been able to access federal funds through the John H. Chafee Program for Successful Transition to Adulthood program to support young adults leaving foster care up to their 21st birthday. Yet young people who have been in foster care continue to face challenges well after turning 21. A recent federal policy, the Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA) of 2018, responds to this need by giving states the option to extend the provision of Chafee-funded services to age 23. All states with extended federal foster care (EFFC) are eligible to submit a request to extend Chafee services to age 23 to the Children's Bureau for approval. States without EFFC, but who currently use state or other funds to provide comparable services, may also submit a request to the Children's Bureau to extend Chafee services to age 23. However, the FFPSA did not include additional federal funds for Chafee, and states that received extension approval did not receive an increase in Chafee funding. Study researchers spoke to a sample of states that had and had not taken the federal option to extend Chafee-funded services to age 23 to understand how states approached the extension. This brief describes how some states implemented the extension, why some eligible states did not seek approval to extend Chafee services to age 23, and common challenges states experienced in supporting older young adults. This information may be useful to states considering whether to extend Chafee services to age 23 and can be used by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) to develop a learning agenda focused on supporting the extension population.